Final answer:
The sequence ATTGC may not uniquely identify a location in a large genome like the human genome, which contains about 3 billion base pairs. Researchers use BLAST to compare sequences against known DNA sequences in comprehensive databases like that maintained by the NCBI. A longer sequence or additional context would aid a more effective search.
Step-by-step explanation:
The sequence ATTGC is likely too short to uniquely identify a location in a large genome, such as the human genome which is approximately 3 billion base pairs long. Because the genome is so large and there are only four different nucleotide bases (adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G)), a short sequence of five bases could potentially appear many times throughout the genome.
To locate a specific sequence within the human genome, researchers often use a technique called BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool), which compares the query sequence against a database of known sequences. The NCBI (National Center for Biological Information) maintains a comprehensive database of DNA sequences that includes the human genome.
In the case of the student's question, adding more nucleotides to the sequence to make it longer or using additional contextual genomic information would make the search more effective. This would reduce the number of matches and increase the likelihood of finding a unique or relevant genomic location.